NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin will not be meeting in person this month which implies that the India-Russia Annual Summit won’t happen.
This is for the second time in 22 years that the annual meet will not take place. Last time, it didn’t take place was in 2020 when the pandemic broke out.
President Putin had come for the Summit on December 6, 2021, and had extended an invite to PM Modi to come for the summit to Moscow in 2022. However, no schedule was fixed and this couldn’t take place. Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov has said, “It won’t be this year.’’
Busy schedules of both the leaders is being cited as the reason for the summit not taking place. “Annual summits depend on scheduling confirmation from both sides and no such schedule was made for this year. Its not like it was cancelled. India and Japan too have annual meets but it has been skipped twice in the past as it wasn’t scheduled,’’ said sources.
The ties between India and Russia continue to remain strong, with both PM Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar continuously reaffirming that the ties between these two nations are historic and thus were not influenced by geo-politics. After China, India is the largest importer of crude oil from Russia. India has maintained its position of sourcing fossil fuels from wherever it is viable, and Russia happens to be one such market.